Imperium. You have here by been banished from the North. You are banished from the Empires of HOA0004 and Dath. Your Northern Sector Capitols will be removed. If you have not moved your fleets from the north by the time I get there they will be utterly destroyed. You violated your own "Peace Treaty" and are condemned to imprisonment in the south. If you do not agree to these terms there will be only civil war in your own empire until you abdicate in frustration.

There is no timeline, there will be no warnings, there are no peace treaties between Bugzzzzzzz and Imperiators.

Alright sir, your demands have been noted. Seeing as the war is concluded, our fleets shall withdraw and you may retake whatever worlds I have captured in the North.

As per the surrender terms, these will be the new borders of the Imperium. Purple outlines our old clusters and borders, green will be new clusters and blue our new borders.

In this galaxy, unfortunately, the Imperium recognises only gunboat diplomacy. As has been the case throughout all of human history, the strong will rule by force of arms and take what they desire by conquest, and the weak must simply find some way to survive.

Over my corrupted computer code. My Empire will remain where it is and then some. I will rid you of your Eastern Cluster, the areas in HOA0004's Empire and every Imperium Fleet within my boarders will be seen as an act of aggression and fired upon until they leave or are space debris.

There's an interesting situation with the Rathari cluster just north of my capital. Although the rest of the empire works just fine, this cluster is unable to trade starship parts. At all. The yard(s)/autofac have been up and running for over a day and I've reset all the trade routes three times since I realized they weren't exporting parts, but to no avail. I guess I'll keep waiting...

Has anyone else had something like this happen to them? Where a planet says it can't function without a resource and the hub says nothing needs it and nothing's producing it?

Behold my avatar, one of the few ships to be drawn out pixel by pixel in the dreaded... Microsoft Paint!
Day 31: "I have successfully completed my time reversal experiment! Muahahaha!!!"
Day 30: "I might have run into a little problem here."

Yeah, I had this exact same problem before with jumpship parts, although it did work out when I reset the trade routes. Did you do it all within the same watch? Also ensure the autofac has everything it needs - chronimium, trillium, goods etc. Or connect the autofac and yards directly instead of through a hub? Try renaming the worlds as well and see if that helps, it's meant to reset the world or something. Or maybe the populace just objects to living on "Floppy Toaster" and decide not to export anything

catfighter wrote:There's an interesting situation with the Rathari cluster just north of my capital.

It will cost you in efficiency, however, if you are still having trouble with it you can try switching designations of the one planet (to autofac/trillium extractor etc.), wait one watch, switch it back. Do this without anything importing or exporting from it. You may be able to reset whatever is going on. It may try to rebel since this will take several watches to accomplish, plus your efficiency will go down a lot, so don't expect a whole lot for awhile.

If that doesn't work try making it rebel, then capture it again. That should definitely work for the reset.

I've abdicated. As much as I enjoy this game, unfortunately right now I don't have the time to continue maintaining and nurturing such an enormous empire due to IRL business. Besides, there is no end goal or "victory objective" in place like other 4X games, and as there are no more wars to pursue and no more lands to conquer, I see no reason to continue. Having the largest fleet, the most worlds, and winning 3 wars is victory enough for me. I will honorably bring about the collapse of my reign rather than see the Imperium torn apart by war or neglect.

At this stage it's getting quite unfair for the other players: Imperium fleets could sweep aside all opposition and eliminate every empire left standing in a day. This is no idle boast, however, for reasons I will outline below...

Some observations from my time in the game as a newbie up to now:

1. There is a very steep learning curve. Were it not for WTV's excellent guide the Imperium would never have become the all-conquering superpower it is now. For newbies, Anacreon would really benefit from a tutorial e.g. how to conquer worlds, set up trade routes, adjust production etc etc.

2. Significant lack of balance with regard to units and defenses. The Titan-class battlestation, for instance. It would be logical to assume the most expensive and top-tier defensive structure would provide the best defenses, but nope. Same goes for starcruisers.

3. In war, he who strikes first wins. This is due in part to the speed and effectiveness of the Eldritch-class, even negating planetary defenses once assembled in large enough numbers. Coupled with the OP defection mechanics the defending side will be swept aside easily by their own ships and troops. Obviously bad for balance and defenders should at least be given a fighting chance somehow.

4. The interface lag is an issue. Especially with an empire the size of the Imperium, there is a 2-3 second delay for every action, which can make the game borderline unplayable. This is part of the reason I'm abdicating. Even for normal-sized empires, starting an action at the end of the watch/minute will cause the interface to freeze up, often times I end up reloading the whole page. And my PC is no slouch either...

5. The messaging system is... suboptimal, to say the least. Repeating messages for deaths/civil wars, accidental dismissal of other players' messages make communication somewhat frustrating. Something like a live chat would be amazing, for events a brief summary of everything that occurred since last login would also be an improvement.

6. The no-capital bug. Oh dear, this is a biggie. I'm sure everyone knows about this notorious thing so the sooner it's fixed the better.

Regardless of all these issues, I recognise this is still in Beta and has much potential. The idea is very unique and definitely could attract many players, if done right. I'm extremely supportive of indie games and I'll be coming back in a year or so if/when the next release is available. Hopefully many changes will be forthcoming.

***One very special new and significant thing which I have learned:

Now even Gorgos defenses are useless. This is how: An attacker assembles 2 hosts, an intercepting Helion fleet several million strong: the "shield", and the other more powerful main fleet of Eldritch/Minotaur: the "hammer". The shield is sent to the target world first. It remains in orbit until the hammer is one jump away from arriving at the target, then the attack command is issued in the last 2-3 seconds of the watch/minute.

What happens now is that all defenders (read: Gorgos) target the Helions only, and will not switch targets until the explorers are all destroyed. Now you can see the problem? Hammer fleet arrives in the second minute and automatically targets the Gorgos. They can close into range without ever being fired upon, because the Gorgos are still attacking the Helions! So the Gorgos range advantage is useless and they are quickly annihilated by the hammer's superior numbers. The 2 fleets then continue ravaging the defending empire's sector capitals, their numbers being bolstered by defecting units... and this continues ad infinitum or until the defender is annihilated utterly.

Yes, this has been proven and tested in war. The Imperium defeated the Union of Free Worlds with this tactic, using defected Helions to shield her own forces, and captured over 3 capitals without losing a single "valuable" unit. The recent war on Dath and HOA004 was also conducted in this manner, I even went so far as to defeat 300k Gorgos with this tactic without a single Eldritch/Minotaur casualty. Helion casualties are insignificant (500-600k) and are easily replaceable anyway.

One more important thing: 2 empires can effectively ally with each other, and if working in close coordination, can defeat a superior adversary. The Imperium allied with Hand to defeat UFW, and together discovered it is possible for 2 empires to attack in the same minute and have their fleets attack alongside each other. This can be coupled with the tactic above, where one empire masses Helions and the other Eldritch/Minotaur.

So there. The Imperium's secret weapon(s) exposed. Now is a good time to abdicate and watch the galaxy descend into chaos as opposing powers attempt this on each other... or not.

Last edited by --Imperator-- on Fri Mar 10, 2017 2:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

None of the suggestions have worked excepting the second parts world (which I have yet to try but had suspected would fix it).

Ah, so someone else found out about the shield, eh? I've known it was possible for a while but never had good cause to use it since the old Barricades Pact's last Great War. A further application of this tactic is to try to land a fleet of transports directly from behind the shield instead of merely protecting warships. It's more difficult to pull off, especially is the enemy has multiple types of units, but exchanging a few ten thousand helions/transports for a few ten thousand gorgos seems like a worthwhile trade to me.

It's been fun playing with you!

Behold my avatar, one of the few ships to be drawn out pixel by pixel in the dreaded... Microsoft Paint!
Day 31: "I have successfully completed my time reversal experiment! Muahahaha!!!"
Day 30: "I might have run into a little problem here."

Now even Gorgos defenses are useless. This is how: An attacker assembles 2 hosts, an intercepting Helion fleet several million strong: the "shield", and the other more powerful main fleet of Eldritch/Minotaur: the "hammer". The shield is sent to the target world first. It remains in orbit until the hammer is one jump away from arriving at the target, then the attack command is issued in the last 2-3 seconds of the watch/minute.

What happens now is that all defenders (read: Gorgos) target the Helions only, and will not switch targets until the explorers are all destroyed. Now you can see the problem? Hammer fleet arrives in the second minute and automatically targets the Gorgos. They can close into range without ever being fired upon, because the Gorgos are still attacking the Helions! So the Gorgos range advantage is useless and they are quickly annihilated by the hammer's superior numbers. The 2 fleets then continue ravaging the defending empire's sector capitals, their numbers being bolstered by defecting units... and this continues ad infinitum or until the defender is annihilated utterly.

Yes, this has been proven and tested in war. The Imperium defeated the Union of Free Worlds with this tactic, using defected Helions to shield her own forces, and captured over 3 capitals without losing a single "valuable" unit. The recent war on Dath and HOA004 was also conducted in this manner, I even went so far as to defeat 300k Gorgos with this tactic without a single Eldritch/Minotaur casualty. Helion casualties are insignificant (500-600k) and are easily replaceable anyway.

One more important thing: 2 empires can effectively ally with each other, and if working in close coordination, can defeat a superior adversary. The Imperium allied with Hand to defeat UFW, and together discovered it is possible for 2 empires to attack in the same minute and have their fleets attack alongside each other. This can be coupled with the tactic above, where one empire masses Helions and the other Eldritch/Minotaur.

So there. The Imperium's secret weapon(s) exposed. Now is a good time to abdicate and watch the galaxy descend into chaos as opposing powers attempt this on each other... or not.

So at last the secrets are out...

The shield/hammer strategy is indeed very effective against the starfrigate-only defense strategy pioneered by Wayward Device. I believe that a moderate investment in hypersonic missiles on hubs and sector capitals may blunt shield/hammer; hypersonic batteries will chew up a Helion fleet pretty quickly.

Joint attacking came as a surprise to me when Imperium suggested it, I had never considered that it might be possible. It can be quite effective if the two empires are working together closely, and it also presents an opportunity for some truly epic backstabbing if one of the two attacking empires turns on the "allied" fleet in the moment of decision. (This didn't happen but it definitely could.)